Trump’s USMCA Lifts Off With Job Dreams and Paperwork Nightmares

President Donald Trump’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement went into force Wednesday, almost three years after negotiations began to establish a new framework for one of the world’s largest commercial blocs.

After the long wait, and almost two years since a deal was initially reached, the start of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, feels a bit anticlimactic. It’s vastly overshadowed in the news by the global pandemic. Even with the new rules, the biggest concern in recent months focused on supply-chain interruptions due to the unsynchronized lockdowns in the three countries.